No one, from nowhere
by xxxidrilxxx
Summary: a faceless woman from Braavos meets a man who makes her want to be someone and settle down somewhere... a short one shot... maybe


They had been lovers for over a year now.

Ever since she had left Braavos and returned to Westeros, she had been wandering. Never staying anywhere too long, making sure to change her face when she came to a new place after the old had served it's purpose.

She was no one now, and so she belonged nowhere, and that suited her quite well.

That was, until she met him.

At first, they didn't get along. They argued endlessly. He was just too stubborn.

Soon, though, they were friends, and too soon after that, lovers.

This had surprised her.

That this man she'd just met, a man who was practically a stranger, had been able to crack through that outer layer that had calloused over the years, as if she were no more than butter.

What also surprised her, was how she'd woken up one morning, her head pillowed on his bare chest and and the sunlight bleeding through the shutters warming her bare back, and as she glanced up at his sleeping face through her lashes, she knew that she would stay.

And she did.

She kept the face he knew her by, and the name, and she settled down with him. And things were good.

The day the helmet returned to him though, was the day everything changed.

An old man had walked into town, offering a bull shaped helm in exchange for a horse. Gendry only had one horse. A good horse, but made the exchange almost without a second thought. Very unlike him.

That was when the nightmares began.

He'd wake up soaked in his own sweat, almost every night, and he'd never let her comfort him.

He grew distant, and angry.

She had no idea why he had traded his only horse for an old, beat up helmet, but she cursed the day.

She had no idea why he sat for hours, polishing it, lost in himself. Over and over and over again. Every afternoon, but she wanted nothing more than to destroy it.

He stopped making love to her. Stopped spending time with her. Stopped arguing with her...

He became a hollow shell of the man that had once moved her enough to stay.

And so, she decided she would leave him.

Change her face, and change her name, and this time, keep herself from being moved by anyone. From being touched. . .

Yet, every time she looked into his sad, blue eyes, she found she couldn't. And she hated herself for it, and she'd go out into the forest and beat at the trees with the sword Gendry had smithed for her until her arm and sides ached, and she'd stare out into trees, and she'd tell herself, she could just start walking. Just leave, and don't look back. . .

But something always pulled her back, and reeled her in... into his home, and into his bed.

So, she opted to try and bring the old Gendry back. The man that had made her become someone when she had been no one.

The night came when she finally cracked through...

That night he grabbed her, and he kissed her with so much passion, and fire that it made her lips bleed.

He tore her dress off, bringing from her a moan of both pain and desire.

They backed towards the bed and he threw her on the mattress, and leaned in her to kiss her collar bone.

He kissed his way up her neck until he found her lips once more.

His tongue swept her mouth, as if inside it he could find an escape to the chill inside of him.

With one knee he parted her legs and in one swift move he was inside her.

He was hungry, and he selfish, only thinking about himself.

When he came close to his climax he cried out a name.

Arya.

She found a way to kick him off her, and she tugged at the furs on the bed to cover herself. He looked up from the floor, and she saw nothing in his eyes.

Something in her chest exploded at that moment.

Truth.

Memories.

Pain.

Grief

... they all leaked into her, filling the hollow that had been inside of her for years.

And she remembered . . . everything.

Her family, Winterfell, Nymeria, Jon, Needle, Syrio, her father, and her mother, Mordane, Joffrey, Yoren, Hot Pie, Lommy, Jaqen, Weasel, Harrenhal, The Brotherhood, The Hound, Jaqen's coin, Bravoos, the kindly man, the wolf dreams... and Gendry.

Before she realized what she was doing, she felt the face she'd worn for over a year now... the face Gendry knew her as, shift as the weight she hadn't realized she'd been carrying for so many years, lifted off her shoulders.

The blonde hair that once fell on her shoulders, now brown. She turned to face Gendry, whose eyes grew wide as he stood slowly from the floor, closing the gap between them with careful steps.

"Arya?" he whispered, almost inaudibly, when he'd come as close as he'd dared to.

Her eyes fell to the floor as she bit her lip in thought.

The name fit.

It sounded right.

_Arya._

It woke in her reactions that no other name had ever... raised the hairs in the back of her neck, and ignited life under her skin.

_Arya._

She raised her gaze to meet his.

"Yes." she whispered hesitantly. "I think that is my name.


End file.
